NCIS (re)watch

[Frumenta]

Does anyone need an overview of the characters? Really?

Anyway. Spinoff from JAG (which sucked IMHO) featuring a team of investigators solving murder mysteries. The Team is family, characters are engaging and portrayed by talented and charismatic actors and in many ways the actual mystery and arcs of the show are secondary to the interactions in the Team.

Episode 1.01 Yankee White

Murder on Air Force 1. A naval officer is chosen by a Bush impersonator to have dinner with him. After that experience the officer looks disoriented and nauseous, he vomits and then dies. Man, talk about an overreaction.

Interesting that NCIS decided to go with the actual president for this and didn't choose to have some fictitious president like SG1. The impersonator and stock footage of George W. Bush are used throughout the episode. Nice blast from the past. :/

The team (basically Ducky, Gibbs and DiNozzo) hijack the dead body and the investigation right under the nose of all the other Agencies. There is already this feeling of how the unknown NCIS is the underdog in this and we get introduced to that FBI guy who hates Gibbs guts. I'm afraid I can't remember his name right now.

The team gets to meet Kate and they give her a crash course on what it is they do and all the things she did wrong in the investigation. She begins to respect them and is wooed over to the NCIS at the end. Her reasons for leaving her job are somewhat convoluted. She had had sex with a co-worker but it was hardly relevant to what was going on and I'm pretty sure she woudln't have gotten in trouble. So Kate, the newcomer is basically now the audience's eyes. There is a strange dynamic there with Gibbs which squicked me a little since I can't really ship Gibbs with anyone. The way he manipulates her is pretty interesting and very close to flirting.

Lovely humour in the episode, I still laugh when I remember Ducky and DiNozzo photographing each other sitting at the President's desk as well as Gibbs hilariously racing after Kate to collect her vomit.

As beginnings go it is pretty solid. The mystery is interesting and kept me guessing and the team dynamics show through even that early in the show.

7/10

 

[Gatefan1976]

Thanks Frumenta :beckettu:

Yeah, I got hooked on NCIS right from the get go, there was very little I didn't like from the start. I did however think JAG was half decent however (my dad got me into JAG, so I returned the favor and got both my parents into NCIS!)

The team is great from the start and it's interesting you say that Kate is our "eyes in" to the team, I'd never really thought of it like that before, good pickup.

Look forward to the next review!

 

[Frumenta]

Episode 1.02 - Hung Out to Dry

We start with the show faking us out that some guy is going to rape his girlfriend in a car. Instead of that a parachutist falls from the sky on their car. Damn, teens and dead bodies is a theme as we see also later in the season.

DiNozzo goes to get Gibbs who has been working on his boat. Gibbs' cellphone has been "accidentally" dropped in a vase of paint-thinner. He as also ripped out his landline. As we later learn from Ducky this is understandable since it is Gibbs' anniversary and his third wife has a habit of getting drunk and calling him on that date. From this I would guess that there have been at least 2-3 years since the end of that marriage since the way Ducky sounded about it would suggest a pattern. I wonder if anyone has worked on a timeline for Gibbs' wives because 1 I don't see how the man could have married and divorced 3 women in the space of less than 10 years.

I love the mystery surrounding Gibbs and the little bits of info we get tantalisingly dropped here and there. Perhaps if SGU writers hadn't put on their exposition hats and beaten us over the head with all the details about their heros we would be a little more interested.

At the death scene Gibbs is still working on making an NCIS agent out of Kate, giving her boots and other gear and still being kinda flirty and freaking me out. DiNozzo finds out from Ducky about the phone embargo at the Gibbs' household. The dead parachutist is still dead.

Gibbs and Kate come back, Kate very grunge in her skirt and army boots combo. And they... erm... investigate stuff.

Later back at the NCIS HQ Ducky and Abby get to do their science and Kate gets drafted to help out Abby and do some female bonding along with suggestive lines about guns and tattoos respectively:

Abby: You're packing more heat than meets the eye?
Kate: Is this your only tattoo?
Abby: Show me yours, I'll show you mine.

As character introductions go it's not half bad and we get interesting info on both women and their motivations. And not much in the way of chemistry but I'm ok with that. As much as I'm down with Abby's style and possibly wild sexuality there is something also very innocent and childlike about the character. She does work with McGee but I don't think I would ever ship her with anyone else.

I'm grateful for the personal stuff in the episode because it distracts from how mind-numbingly boring the mystery is. After a few fakeouts they solve it, of course and Gibbs gets to bond with the dead parachutist's kid. The kid has the most terrible bowl cut ever and I'm left shaking my head with disgust as Gibbs instantly bonds with the little orphan and puts his woodworking skills to use finishing the kid's treehouse. I get it, the softer side to Gibbs but I hate those kind of scenes and this is forced and utterly lame.

Not too good for an episode so early in the series. The mystery is nothing special and there aren't any scenes that particularly stand out. Very forgettable.

5/10

 

[Frumenta]

Thanks Frumenta :beckettu:

Yeah, I got hooked on NCIS right from the get go, there was very little I didn't like from the start. I did however think JAG was half decent however (my dad got me into JAG, so I returned the favor and got both my parents into NCIS!)

The team is great from the start and it's interesting you say that Kate is our "eyes in" to the team, I'd never really thought of it like that before, good pickup.

Look forward to the next review!

Hehe, went ahead and wrote it right away. To be honest about JAG, I remember I would watch it from time to time if nothing else was on but I wouldn't say I enjoyed it. I was just surprised to find out that NCIS was a JAG spinoff. It does make sense when I think about it but it's weird that I like NCIS so much when I had mostly disliked JAG. I really don't remember JAG all that well but I don't think it had the same style.

 

[SG-Rocks]

I've been watching some Jag as our library has the disks. While I liked the whole series several things got to be a bit much. Endless Budd & Harriet filler scenes. Annoying Brumby. And I think the show structure collapsed in the end with the departure of the Admiral last season. The whole Russian thing didn't interest me. One of the funniest episodes was Budd's stag party.

Just wait until you see the "Chip" episodes in NCIS. I guarantee you'll do a double WTF?

BTW Harm went to Ryerson Theatre Arts while I was hanging around at about the same time in the eighties. Then again, I was doing metallurgy and architecture which is why I'm not famous.

 

[Gatefan1976]

Hehe, went ahead and wrote it right away. To be honest about JAG, I remember I would watch it from time to time if nothing else was on but I wouldn't say I enjoyed it. I was just surprised to find out that NCIS was a JAG spinoff. It does make sense when I think about it but it's weird that I like NCIS so much when I had mostly disliked JAG. I really don't remember JAG all that well but I don't think it had the same style.

See, NCIS is what happens when you actually LEARN and GROW whist doing another show rather than trying to ignore it.
I feel the same way about "The Practice" vs "Boston Legal", same main writer, but BL is imho 200% better than the practice.

OT for a minute (but related)
Isn't it "funny" that alot of us seem to love "character driven shows" yet SGU, which is supposed to be all about the characters, is just so damn pathetic. Says alot, doesn't it.

 

[Frumenta]

Episode 1.03- Seadog

Or Dead Marines can't jump. I'm going to go completely by memory on this one (really slow day at work)

We start with a bunch of teens having a beach party. Suddenly there are shots fired and then they see a runaway boat and a dead body (possibly not in that order)

The team comes the next morning to process the scene. The dead guy looks very familiar. I remember I kept expecting to have flashbacks with him in the episode later on but it never happened. He might have played a living marine in Marine Down (the dead guy's friend) but with barely a glimpse at the corpse I can't be sure.

Turns out the death is drug related or at least appears so and the dead guy is not only dead, he also gets his character trashed on TV. Gibbs is Not Happy. He decides to do some digging on that one.

Gibbs has a minor moment of awesome scaling a pretty high fence to talk to a bunch of stereotypically disadvantaged youths that the heroic dead marine had been mentoring and telling to stay off drugs. They don't believe that Seadog as they knew him could be involved in the drug deal.

NCIS ends up working with DEA and they leave no stone unturned, including bringing in two drug dealers to identify their dead lackeys right at autopsy. None of this felt very believable but the two drug dealers were pretty funny, esp. the black guy. Also funny the fact that the DEA's dog is named Tony:

Tony: He must be a real stud
DEA guy: He's neutered

With the help of some pretty solid detective work from Tony, which included interviewing a pair of stereotypical Aussie babes in bikinis the team finds out that the whole thing is actually terrorist related.

So suddenly all the agencies end up getting involved and we see pissed off FBI guy (Fornell, is it?). To be honest, I'm not sure what it was the terrorists wanted to do exactly, something to do with causing a black out in North America. It wasn't that terrifying. The team stops the nasty terrorist just in time and all is well.

Gibbs also works on restoring the dead marine's reputation. A parallel to the episode right before this where he went to help out the orphaned kid, he now goes to the basketball court where the disadvantaged youths are playing and gets the reporter who was responsible for trashing the guy to film a story that will clear his name. It is fairly well done, once more we can see that Gibbs cares and wants to take care of all the loose ends.

Random tidbit from the episode: Abby can sign since both of her parents were deaf. From the past tense I'm guessing they are now dead and not miraculously hearing though it could be just a turn of phrase. I do know Abby's father is dead from Season 8 episodes but not sure about her mother. Interestingly, Gibbs can sign too but this being Gibbs we don't get any explanation.

It was a rather boring episode. The terrorist plot wasn't much and while the team interactions were great as usual, nothing really grabbed me.

4/10

 

[Frumenta]

Episode 1.04 - The Immortals

We start with young people having fun so you know that a dead body can't be far away. I think that this show hates young people. Those guys who had a beach party in the previous episode will never have another beach party without remembering the dead guy. The girl who was about to have sex in a car two episodes ago and a dead guy fell on the car will probably never have sex in a car or never have sex ever. And the douche in this episode going for some diving and discovering the dead body of a young marine in full uniform replete with sword will probably never go diving again.

It is actually a pretty cool dead body scene, the dead guy floating there in full dress uniform and weights, hair flowing in the current and it makes for a fairly good mystery. My first guess was definitely hazing but of course it's never my first guess.

The team goes to the guy's ship to investigate wtf was up with this dude. There they find out that marines on that boat are spending their time on the computers doing pretty much anything but working from downloading porn to playing MMRPGs. Now let me admit something. I've never played an MMRPG. I don't know the first thing about them and even I found this portrayal of players somewhat insulting.

Some good scenes with the team, fun with Tony in Puerto Rico, Abby shining as she games non stop to gain access to the dead guy's character with Ducky's clueless help in the form of Caf Pows and Kate is cool with how she manages to profile the guy from the crazy bs he writes about his character and all that his character is planning to do. There is also some genuine very well done tension in the end and in general the mystery is quite well done.

6/10

 

[Rac80]

I've been watching some Jag as our library has the disks. While I liked the whole series several things got to be a bit much. Endless Budd & Harriet filler scenes. Annoying Brumby. And I think the show structure collapsed in the end with the departure of the Admiral last season. The whole Russian thing didn't interest me. One of the funniest episodes was Budd's stag party.

Just wait until you see the "Chip" episodes in NCIS. I guarantee you'll do a double WTF?

BTW Harm went to Ryerson Theatre Arts while I was hanging around at about the same time in the eighties. Then again, I was doing metallurgy and architecture which is why I'm not famous.

then when the twist comes you will do a double WTFF?


I actually enjoyed JAG...harm and the admiral were great eye candy, and mac was simply kick ass. Bud was too damn annoying.

 

[Frumenta]

I enjoyed the eyecandy that Harm provided in Jag too. Cute as hell. Also enjoyed Andrea Thompson in her short role. I had a huge girl crush on her ever since Falcon Crest and then Babylon 5.

Not sure what the Chip episodes are in NCIS but if they contain JAG references I probably won't get them. I remember next to nothing about JAG.